For 10 years, libertarian activist and scholar Peter Jaworski has thrown an annual summer seminar and party on the Clarington, Ontario property owned by his parents, Marta and Lech. The Liberty Summer Seminar typically features speeches from libertarian activists and scholars followed by live music and food. This year Peter's parents, who fled to Canada from communist Poland in the 1980s, face a $50,000 fine for violating local zoning laws.

Peter Jaworski said the local health department called him a few days before the event and he thought he had addressed its concerns over food being served — he decided to cater — and the three portable toilets on site.

But the couple received a summons to provincial court on Sept. 28 on a charge of using land in an agricultural zone "for a commercial conference centre" contrary to a Clarington bylaw.

Marta Jaworski, 57, said she and her husband, also 57, are "devastated" by the charge, which she called a "taste" of the oppression they felt in Poland before fleeing in 1984 to Germany and later Canada.

"It is a feeling to be hunted. They come in uniforms . . . ," she said, starting to cry.

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Actually a number of the freedoms they were celebrating are in direct violation of the Quran and as such are “likely to expose” muslims and their beliefs “to hatred or contempt”. Due to the use of the internet and fliers to promote this event and the related freedoms, the case has been forwarded “Canada’s Human Rights Commissions”

I feel I’m learning that governments almost never take away freedoms, in the sense that they actually, explicitly, say that “you don’t have the right to…” Instead, they just make the freedoms so incredibly hard to exercise that they practically disappear. You certainly have a right to ____, as long as you get approved land for it, fill out the proper paperwork (and by the way, hope processing doesn’t take too long!), pay the right fees, do it at the right time, etc. But oh, you have the right, of course.

(00:22:48) It’s like something you would see in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. People think these things don’t go on. But we know they go on every day… These people who have no idea how to use power at all. They won’t even accept limits on their power. They don’t even know what the law requires of them, these directors. They go by what some lawyer tells them to do, which the lawyer tells them to do only because he or she knows they can get away with it. Because the only recourse you have is some civil suit. Here in Illinois, we don’t have an Ombudsman. Most states don’t. There’s nowhere for [property] owners to turn. If the lawyer tells them “Oh, just jack ’em around. Who cares what the rules are? Who cares what the law says? It’ doesn’t make any difference. The transaction costs of enforcing an [property] owners rights are so great that they are hardly ever able to do it. (00:23:40)

My favorite part of Food Inc. is where the organic milk guys realize they can get their message and eco-friendly product out to millions more customers through a deal with Wal-Mart.

My second favorite part is the raging against the U.S.’s huge agricultural subsidies that make corporate farms rich while causing unintended consequences including the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Some very libertarian ideas in that movie.

no this is perfectly normal. Land use bureaucrats nearly always make up regulations as they go along. Legislative enactment of regulations is generally a sideshow where Bureaucrats tell legislators they are passing one thing then have them sign into law another thing.

I know this seems far fetched but i have seen it happen multiple times.

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Councillor Gord Robinson, who represents the Jaworskis, declined comment by email, saying: “The Jaworski family have not been in contact with me about any issue and until they do I will not interfere.”

Glad to hear the United States doesn’t corner the market on limp-dicked politicians.

Why is it that these crapholes feel free to act on their own initiative when it comes to putting their boot on someone’s neck, but when it comes to reigning in some thimble-witted thick-necked pocket Stasi, they disappear.

Well, if he isn’t being dishonest, how did he “disappear”? I doubt local politicians are aware of every time local bureaucrats crush people’s dreams (would be a full time job anyway), and they’re probably going to be more concerned with acting if they get first party or a lot of third party complaints, not just a reporter asking questions.

Actually this appear to be a typo. Councillor in Canada, is a local politician kinda person. What I believe the writer was aiming for was Counsel which can be used as a word for lawyer. The writer is simply not up on legal/lawyerly terms.

i.e. There is also the word “counsel” (not “counsellor”) that Canadian judges like to use to refer to a lawyer who is representing someone in court. “ – this is from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-i…..squire.htm

Which has nothing at all to do with the fact that, actually, the U.S. does not have the market cornered on limp-dicked politician. It is simply that the U.S. is where Canadian assholes go to find out how and what to mimic.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY And for that you must die. ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

try to use images that have already been used by reason. The advantage of this is two fold. It conserves resources both for reason.com and for people’s load times and it insures that the image is acceptable to reason readers.

Use small images when posting images from offsite.

Try to keep the animated gifs to a minimum.

Stay away from nipples, dicks or vaginas.

Anyway just an idea…it would be cool to keep this. If we play nice we might be able to.

I’d be all for something like that, but I doubt seriously they’ll let us keep our toys. I suppose a possibility would be to tell everyone how to do some reasonable coding (like small pictures), but you know someone would abuse the hell out of it.

This feature actually has a little utility. The Comments of this thread are way easy to navigate.

“Where was that comment i posted?”

“Oh yeah it was between Lobster girl and Mohamed bomb”

Awsome!!

Another rule of thumb:

Do not post threaded photo replies that are not related to the subject. If you got new photo that is not a response post it as a new unthreaded comment at the bottom. Examples: the placement of the Super trooper photo is bad while the Mohammad photo is good. Uncle Ben photo is also good cuz although threaded it relates to the subject of the thread.

David Weigel is an associate editor of Reason Magazine and a frequent poster on the Hit & Run blog.[1]

For reasons that aren’t clear, at one time, Weigel’s Hit & Run posts were readily commented on as “shilling” for the Democrats. As these accusations were losing traction, they were replaced with humorous accusations of “shilling” for something ridiculous in the posting.

A local couple would host live bands and would send out fliers to their neighbors to let them know what was going on. He charged a small cover that went directly to the band and gave away free home brewed beer. Of course one new neighbor objected and the city shut him down. After an uproar they graciously allowed him to start back up again if he promised to stop putting out fliers.

The truly sad thing is that a disturbingly large number of commenters on the story defend the city and can’t believe people are mad at them because they “allowed” the couple to resume their concerts.